Explication of "Talking to Grief" by Denise Levertov

This poem by Denise Levertov is personifying the human emotion grief and addressing it as a dog. The poem starts out by trying to coax in a homeless dog and by the end of the poem the dog is accepted into the household and the author says that it is her own dog. This comparison of grief and a dog is displaying how grief must be trusted and not put aside before it's too late; "before winter comes." When the author says "before winter comes" this can be inferred to represent death. If grief is never accepted into a person or a homeless dog is not accepted into a household, then death is expected. This poem is told in the first person. This poem can be a way in which the author is healing herself and allowing herself to cope with grief by comparing it to something that everyone can relate to. The homeless dog being brought into the narrator's home and eventually becoming apart of the household symbolizes the author coming to terms with her own grief.